


Sometimes...

by 221blackandwhitestripes



Series: Riddlebird Week 2018 [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Day Seven: Royalty, Drinking, Drug Use, Flirting, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Oswald Cobblepot, Penguin Oswald Cobblepot, Requited Love, Riddlebird Week, Riddler Ed Nygma, Smoking, Summer of Gotham, The Iceberg Lounge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 01:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221blackandwhitestripes/pseuds/221blackandwhitestripes
Summary: A crown on his head and a gun in his pocket; this is what Oswald Cobblepot tells himself he needs.It doesn't have to be the truth.Riddlebird Week, Day Seven: Royalty





	Sometimes...

**Author's Note:**

> I literally could not think of a single thing for this prompt, so here is a mess™. I think it worked out for the best though. Please enjoy :)

 

A crown on his head and a gun in his pocket; this is what Oswald Cobblepot tells himself he needs.

He laughs at the commoners; clinging to their loved ones like barnacles. Oswald has only truly loved once; his mother shining through his mind like a piercing dagger, revisiting him in his sleep. She’s gone now, and Oswald accepts that. 

Now, he has no weak spots to exploit.

“Are you sure about that, Ozzie?” Riddler is a nuisance, popping up where he doesn’t belong, wriggling inside his head until Oswald can hear him still whenever he’s gone. Oswald will tip his crown to the side with a knowing smirk and call him a coward for not taking what he wants. 

And Riddler will call him a coward right back.

Sometimes, he leaves straight after, huffing and puffing like a disturbed train, long legs carrying him places as Oswald pretends his eyes don’t go straight to his backside.

But, sometimes, he stays, relaying another long-winded plan in excruciating detail as Oswald drinks his whiskey; sometimes by the glass, sometimes, by the bottle.

“You’re a charming man, Eddie,” he’ll slur, mind a blur and falling from his lips to splash across the table; his inhibitions are lowered and everything escapes. “I like that.”

Riddler just looks at him, and it’s always the same look, one that, each time, Oswald gives up on deciphering. Sometimes, he is glad he can’t figure it out, afraid of the truths Riddler has written in the line of his brow and the twitch of his lips. Perhaps it’s a warning; that Oswald is surely done for and should run away now while he still can.

Oswald doesn’t want to run away from him.

Sometimes, Riddler will approach him in the middle of the Iceberg Lounge, walking straight up to Oswald’s table without a care. He’ll ignore the glares of every pretty boy and girl as they are all sent away. They hate to believe they are mere objects of distraction, but that’s the truth and Oswald isn't about to change that. The definition of a subject is “a person or thing that is being discussed, described, or dealt with,” after all.

Riddler will bend on one knee and kiss his ring. “My king,” he’ll purr, wild and indiscreet. Oswald shivers and drowns in his gaze, for it is Riddler who holds all the power, while Oswald’s is circling the drain. The onlookers will whisper of the man with every known criminal under his thumb, but Oswald is as entrapped by himself as the rest are.

“Let go,” Riddler might whisper in his ear if he’s drunk enough or quiet enough or on the edge of exhaustion. Sometimes, it’s really him saying it.

Oswald won’t let go.

Sometimes, Riddler is bolder, perhaps a hand on Oswald’s knee, his breath escaping him like a freed bird as it crawls up his thigh. Sometimes, it’s different, intimate rather than sensual. Sometimes, he’ll light Oswald’s cigarette for him, face illuminated by the gentle orange glow. Sometimes, Oswald’s cigarette is already lit and Riddler will simply pluck it from his lips, take a long drag before blowing smoke rings into Oswald’s gaping mouth. Oswald will inhale them like a dying man.

It’s moments like these that make Oswald wonder what’s stopping him. Thankfully, these moments pass.

Sometimes, Riddler will do what he always does; ask a riddle.

Sometimes, it’s easy for Oswald to answer, the word slipping from his tongue with dry simplicity as he sips his whiskey or adjusts his monocle.

“Sometimes I am loved, Usually by the young. Other times I am dreaded, Mostly by the old ones. I am hard to remember, Also hard to forget. And yet if you do, You'll make someone upset. I occur every day Everyone has to face me. Even if you don't want it To happen; embrace me. What am I?”

“Birthday.” He’s forgotten his.

“What goes up and down a hallway but never moves?”

“Carpet.” Forever whiskey stains seeping in, Oswald desperately wanting to crawl in with it.

“I am always around you but often forgotten. I am pure and clean most time, but occasionally rotten. What am I?”

“Air.” He needs some.

Sometimes, Riddler is crueller, darker, knowing what Oswald wants and teasing him for it.

“I am a sacrament of penance, though I may sometimes be false. I am given to priests and police alike, and uttered by both lovers and sinners. What am I?”

Don’t answer-

“Confession.”

“I may only be given, not taken or bought. What the sinner desires, but the saint does not. What am I? “

Don’t answer-

“Forgiveness.”

“I have no mind, yet know what I want. So soft and strong, but I can be shattered into pieces by words or a look. One's most prized possession yet must forever be kept in a cage. What am I?”

Don’t answer, don’t answer, don’t answer-

“A heart.”

“Correct,” Riddler will say, smirking as he looks Oswald up and down. “Another?”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no-

“Yes.”

Sometimes, Riddler will hurt him on purpose.

“I caused the destruction of Troy, the worst of tragedies and numerous maladies, yet I am chased, desired and fought for. What am I?”

“Get out!” A cry or a roll of thunder. Lightning strikes and bent forks as they’re thrown in disgust.

Sometimes, Riddler will leave. Sometimes, he will stay. Always, he smiles.

Sometimes, Oswald will finish nursing his drink, an air of almost-serenity settling on his skin. Sometimes, he’ll smash the glass and scream, fall apart like the shards, splinter like the wood of his chair if he chooses to throw that too.

Still, they survive, and Riddler returns to the Iceberg Lounge once more.

Sometimes, they’re nostalgic.

“Have you come here to kill me once more, friend?” Oswald asks, and Riddler really shouldn’t be here because it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and Oswald has just woken up, and his bloody mary isn’t spicy enough, and the club isn’t even open, but… Oswald will let him stay. Just this once, he’ll tell himself. It doesn’t have to be the truth.

Sometimes, Riddler rolls his eyes, bored with a game he’s already won. Sometimes, he plays along.

“But alas, it seems I’ve left my knife at home. I don’t suppose I could borrow your revolver?”

“I’m afraid my revolver is much too big for your hands,” Oswald might say if he’s still tipsy from the night before, or if he’s snuck a couple extra bloody marys than he really needs. “I don’t think you can handle it.”

“Try me.” And Riddler will step forward, crowding Oswald’s space and stealing his oxygen, leaving him a gasping fish out of water. Their gaze will lock; Oswald’s frozen by apprehension and fear, Riddler’s held by something Oswald dare not name.

They will blink and it will pass. They always blink. Moments always end.

Sometimes, there is no time for pleasantries or witty exchanges.

Riddler stumbles in, and he’s bleeding over the french rug in Oswald’s office, and maybe that’s not what has Oswald’s heart in his throat or his hands clutching Ed tightly like this time he’ll lose him.

Sometimes, Oswald is actually useful for once.

He calls the doctor, not the real ones; above board snobs that will look down their noses at Oswald, forgetting that Oswald’s nose is the longest of them all. No, Oswald brings in his own people, hurrying along behind them as they carry Riddler away on a stretcher that might be several sizes too small.

The doctor is tough and truthful, so when she tells Oswald things will be fine, he believes her.

Sometimes, Ed is high.

The first time Oswald saw him high, it was on cocaine that he’d supplied. They’d enjoyed it together, collapsing in each other’s arms, so close, closer than Oswald should let them get.

There’s no chance of that this time with Ed giggling under the effects of morphine and anything else the doc had laying around.

Sometimes, it’s safe enough to admit the truth.

“You love me, don’t you Oswald?” Ed asks, hand gripping Oswald’s own like a vulture’s claw.

“Yes,” breathless and wild, he confesses his sins.

“I still remember,” Ed tells him.

(Sometimes, they’re nostalgic)

“Remember what?” Oswald swallows a river and bleeds from his stomach. He’s clinging to a rock and it’s slipping under his grasp. “Ed?”

He wonders when he went back to calling him that.

(Sometimes, they’re nostalgic)

“The kiss.”

The gentle press of lips bathed by flames and moonlight. A hand atop of his, gentle and sweet. His knife still has blood on it, it’s resting on his knee. His gun is still hidden away in its pocket. Ed’s gun is pressed between Oswald’s cheek and the hand cupping it.

“I remember too.”

(Sometimes, they’re nostalgic)

“Will you ever do it again?” Ed’s eyes are wide and imploring. Oswald can’t deny him.

“Just this once,” Oswald says. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a truth or a lie.

They kiss, and it’s soft and it’s everything.

And, at last, Oswald is made royal again.

**Author's Note:**

> Short but... good? As always, any and all comments/kudos are greatly appreciated :)


End file.
